Philadelphia’s Wexler Gallery Expands Footprint with Soaring Fishtown Location

The inaugural exhibition, a spirited selection of works by gallery artists and designers, features a 16-by-10-foot abstract painting by Edward McHugh, a towering expanse of atmospheric grays that is the biggest work he’s ever made. Galerie Creative Mind Andreea Avram Rusu contributed an extra-large version of her Bontanica glass chandelier in tropical hues, while Feyza Kemahlioglu created one of her longest illuminated pendants featuring jewel-like glass orbs and carved-meerschaum elements. Then there’s the cement console by Eric Slayton, an exquisitely textured, 1,200-pound monolith that had to be brought in on a forklift and would have been relegated to the basement at Wexler’s previous location.

“We feel like the space has risen up to the quality of our artists,” says Sherri Apter Wexler. She points to one of the gallery’s newer stars, furniture-designer Jomo Tariku, who will have a solo show at Wexler late next year or in early 2025. Tariku, whose contemporary interpretations of traditional African forms appeared in the movie Wakanda Forever and have recently been acquired by multiple museums, says his plan is to “juxtapose an object that influenced my design right next to it and tell the story of each object.”

The gallery’s flexible spaces serve equally well for showing smaller-scale works, notes Lewis Wexler, adding, “or even one large object, which at some point I would love to do in the center of the space.” He says they also plan to host performances and are exploring a collaboration between ceramist Malcolm Mobutu Smith and the Roxey Ballet Company that would involve dancers interacting with Smith’s sculptural vessels that draw from hip-hop and jazz.

When the Wexlers decided it was time to move their flagship (the gallery also has a space at the New York Design Center), the couple zeroed in on Fishtown. Over the past several years, the working-class area has been transformed by redevelopment into Philadelphia’s hippest neighborhood, celebrated for its restaurants, bars, shops, and, increasingly, an expanding art scene.

“People call this the Brooklyn of Philadelphia,” says Lewis Wexler, who met his wife when they were both working at Christie’s in New York in the 1990s. “We saw it as up and coming, a little edgy still, and that appealed to us.”

The onetime pretzel factory, located on the main artery of Frankford Avenue and sporting a distinctive brown-brick crenelated façade, checked a lot of boxes for the couple. But it needed a massive overhaul. A classic automobile collector had been using the street-level space as a garage to tinker with his cars, while “on the second floor there was a guy who was living there kind of illegally,” says Lewis Wexler. Meanwhile, the entire rear of the building was dilapidated, with extensive water damage, perhaps from a fire. “When we were cleaning up, there were mummified bats and rats back there,” he says. “I was like, what are we getting ourselves into?”

To carry out the nearly two years of renovations, the couple worked with the Philadelphia firm DIGSAU, which also designed the nearby Clay Studio building, completed last year. Here, brick walls were cleaned up but left unfinished, beams and ductwork were left exposed, adding to its industrial feel. Where possible, existing timber beams and joists were preserved, and those that had to be replaced were salvaged and the wood repurposed for the open staircase’s treads, which were crafted by the Challenge Project, an organization based in Delaware that “works with people in underserved communities, some who have just left prison, and teaches them a trade,” explains Lewis Wexler.

The Wexlers hope the gallery will become an anchor that helps attract other arts destinations, joining galleries such as Corridor and several others in the nearby Crane Arts building, as well as the Clay Studio and the just-opened Ray Philly, a residential development with ground-floor artists’ studios backed by collector Dasha Zhukova. Also, an industrial building on Frankford is in the early stages of a renovation to become the future home of the West Collection, a vast trove of contemporary art assembled by SEI chairman Alfred West Jr. and his daughter, Paige.

For now, Lewis Wexler is okay with being a bit off the beaten path. “We’re still kind of like being an if-you-know-you-know gallery,” he says. “I like the fact that we fly under the radar a little.”